Four o’clock came soon enough.
Harriet actually did lie down and
appear to sleep, though I’m fairly certain she didn’t actually drift off. I
spent some time reading another book about the Mary Shelley connection to the
Falls. A friend of her and her husband’s—Edward John Trelawny—had come to
America in 1883, and in his published letters he tells about his visit to the
Falls on August 5. Some of the things I read about Trelawney astonished me, and
I couldn’t wait to tell Harriet and Gil about them.[1]
About a quarter to four, Harriet
pretended to wake up—stretched, yawned, tried to look dazed.
“Did you have a good … nap?” I asked so sarcastically that she
knew she hadn’t fooled me.
“I tried to sleep,” she said. “But
you are the world’s loudest page-turner, did you know that?”
“Is that a Guinness Book of World Records category?” I asked. “I think it
should be.”
Harriet said nothing.
“Want to head down to the lobby?” I
asked.
“Sure. Just a minute.” And Harriet
staggered into the bathroom as if she had just awakened from a hundred-year
sleep. I couldn’t help it. I laughed. And when she emerged a few minutes later,
she was once again Harriet the Dazzling. Sleeping Beauty awakes! She really was beautiful, and I knew she’d be
turning male heads on both sides of an international border before we headed
for home.
Most everyone else was in the lobby
when we arrived. I looked for Gil, then saw him with his mother moving very
slowly toward us from an elevator that had just opened. He was gripping his
mother’s arm tightly and was shuffling along instead of taking steps. His face,
again, was paper-white. It was awful to see him suffering so.
Incredibly, though, he was smiling.
He was where he wanted to be.
“All right,” announced Mr. Gisborne,
checking a clipboard. “We’re now all present and accounted for. We’re going to
walk over to Goat Island. Stay together until we get there. Then you can walk
around and look at stuff—but stay on the pathways and stay with your roommate.
I don’t want to see anyone by
themselves.” This last sentence he delivered with all the seriousness of a
prison guard. “At four forty-five,” he added, we’ll gather at the Top of the
Falls Restaurant down at the end of the island. There’s a gift shop there, too.
And that’s where we’ll meet. We have five o’clock reservations. So don’t be
late. Don’t make me come looking for you!” (Prison Guard Statement #2.)
And off we went. Harriet and I
stayed with Gil and Mrs. Bysshe, who were, of course, lagging behind everyone
else. I glanced behind me. And there was Mr. Leon. He raised his hand in a
friendly wave and pretended he was admiring the foliage and other scenery along
the way. But I could tell he was bringing up the rear—making sure no one got
behind him. Oddly, I felt more comfortable, seeing him there. Because, of
course, I was looking everywhere for
Blue Boyle.
[1]
Vickie’s comments here and later indicate this book was probably William St.
Clair’s Trelwany: The Incurable Romancer
(New York: Vanguard Press, 1977).
No comments:
Post a Comment